The Cemetery Keeper Disappeared

Two summers ago my wife was recovering from treatment for cancer and I got
into the habit of taking a long walk every Sunday afternoon while she
rested. I usually followed the same route, leaving the house and following
several old Victorian streets out onto the seafront, and then walking a
couple of miles along the beach before cutting back into town and towards
home. This encounter occurred during one such walk.

It was a lovely, cool summer day with plenty of families enjoying themselves
on the beach and dozens of boats out in the glittering water. When I reached
the point at which I normally turned towards home, I felt quite annoyed,
wishing that I could stay gazing out to sea a lot longer, but I wanted to go
back to check on my wife and so reluctantly turned to head back inland.
However, I decided that I would take a slight detour. The main road that I
usually followed home had a side road leading off of it that I had never
walked down, but which I knew formed a kind of L-shape which eventually
reconnected with the curve of the main road. Despite living in the town for
most of my life I had never explored it, simply because there was no real
reason for me to go there, but now I wandered down, noticing older, Georgian
houses, and some lovely gardens. As I walked a kind of dreamy feeling came
over me as I felt that this little enclave was so near and yet so totally
removed from the town around it, so peaceful and detached. Reaching the
junction of the L-shape, I was amazed to discover an old cemetery which I
had been previously completely unaware of. It is bizarre what things can be
right under your nose which you know nothing about. I must have walked or
driven down the main road thousands of times, yet never realized that this
little cemetery existed just a hundred yards away. Still, I later discovered
that it was virtually invisible from the main road, with only a tiny bit of
the railing visible from the right angle, so perhaps it is not surprising.

The cemetery was well tended and a notice board on the gate explained that
it had fallen into a bad state of repair but had recently been rescued by a
group of volunteers. The board also told the history of the place, which was
all new to me. Correctly, I found, the site should be called a graveyard as
a church had once stood there with its graveyard behind it. About a hundred
years ago the church had been demolished and the resulting free space used
for more burials, resulting in the older graves being at the back of the
site and the newer ones at the front. I decided that I had time for a quick
look around. I was alone in the cemetery apart from a fairly old man who was
cutting back some bushes in the older section -- I assumed a volunteer.
Looking at the memorials of people who had died in the nineteen twenties and
thirties I recognized a number of surnames, quite possibly distant relatives
of people I had grown up with. I made a note of a few names so I could check
later. Moving into the older section I began to feel strange. The graves
here were usually dated in the mid nineteenth century, but I found that I
could barely notice them. It was as though I had become completely detached
from everything. There was no noise, no movement, as though only this one
tiny patch of earth was real and nothing existed beyond it, nothing but a
continual interplay of life and death. I broke out of the trance a little
and looked up to see that the old man who was working on the bush had
noticed me. He gave a friendly smile and went back to his work. I felt so
odd, so detached, that I was overcome by a desire for conversation. I
decided to approach the man and exchange a few comments before heading home.
When I was about ten yards away from him I heard a noise to the right and
glanced round to see a motorbike pass the cemetery gates. At the same moment
my mind cleared and I seemed to come "back to normal." I turned to face the
old man again and he was gone, as was the bush that he had been tending to.
There was nowhere he could have hidden in the two seconds or so that I had
looked away, and the bush had utterly vanished, there was just grass there
now. I think I was shocked enough to be completely calm. There was simply no
explanation other than either something paranormal or some fault in my own
brain. I stood still for about five minutes, noticing that the previous
feeling of strangeness had retreated into the background, and then began the
walk home.

As I made my way out of the cemetery, for the first time in months, a great
feeling of peace came over me. All that occurred two years ago now. My wife
made a full recovery from the cancer but I still sometimes take a walk by
myself on a Sunday, often dropping into the cemetery. Nothing unusual has
happened since, but it is still a beautiful place. I have no idea what
happened that day. Was it a ghost? A time slip of some kind? Or just my over
anxious brain freaking out? In a way I don't really care; sometimes the
experience is worth more than any explanation. For whatever the cause, I
feel that I encountered something of the essence of life and death that
afternoon, that power of change that permeates all things.